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Thursday, September 10, 2015

Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) –
Today the Holy Father Francis received in audience His Highness Sheik
Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, prime minister of the State of
Kuwait, who subsequently met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro
Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, secretary for
Relations with States.

During the cordial discussions, various
themes of mutual interest were reviewed, including the positive
contribution that the historical Christian minority offers to Kuwaiti
society. The Parties also focused on the importance of education in
promoting a culture of respect and peaceful coexistence between the
different peoples and religions.

A Memorandum of Understanding between
the Secretariat of State and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
State of Kuwait was then signed by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher and
Sheik Sabah Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, first deputy prime minister and
minister for foreign affairs. With this instrument the Parties
undertake to consolidate and strengthen bilateral relations in order
to favour mutual collaboration, peace and regional and international
stability.

The agreement further strengthens the
bonds of collaboration in the political and cultural spheres, and
offers tools for consultation between the Parties. It entered into
effect immediately upon signing.

Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) –
The bishops are witnesses to the risen Christ, educators, spiritual
guides and catechists, mystagogues and missionaries, Pope Francis
affirmed this morning as he received in audience in the Clementine
Hall the new bishops ordained during the past year. They were
accompanied by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S., prefect of the
Congregation for Bishops, and Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of
the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The following are
extensive extracts from the Holy Father's address.

“Bishops .. are witnesses of the
Resurrected Christ. This is your primary and indispensable task. You
have been entrusted the preaching of the reality that holds up the
entire edifice of the Church. Jesus is risen! … We too will be
resurrected with Christ. … This is not an obvious or easy
proclamation. The world is so content with … what it is seemingly
able to provide that appears useful to suppress the demand for what
is definitive. … However, we are assailed by questions, the answers
to which can only come from a definitive future. … How can we face
our difficult present if our sense of belonging to the community of
the Risen Christ fades? Will we be able to remember the greatness of
human destiny if there abates in us the courage to subordinate our
life to the love that does not die?”.

“I think of great challenges such as
globalisation, which brings together those who are distant from each
other yet at the same time separates those who are close; I think of
the epochal phenomenon of migration that unsettles our times; I think
of the natural environment, the garden God gave to us as the habitat
for human beings and for other creatures, threatened by short-sighted
and often predatory exploitation; I think of the dignity and future
of human work, of which entire generations are deprived; I think of
the desertification of relationships, a widespread abdication of
responsibility … the bewilderment of many young people and the
solitude of many elderly. … I do not wish to focus on this agenda
of tasks to complete as I do not want to alarm you. … I wish only
to offer to you the joy of the Gospel. … Remember always that it is
the Gospel that protects you and therefore do not be afraid to go
everywhere and to be with those whom God has entrusted to you. … No
sphere of human life is excluded from the interest of the heart of
the pastor. … Be on your guard against the danger of neglecting the
many and singular situations of the members of your flock; do not
renounce encounters with them; do not spare preaching of the living
Word of the Lord; invite all to the mission”.

Bishops as educators, spiritual guides
and catechists

“With those who are at home, who
frequent your communities and partake of the Eucharist, I invite you
to be educators, spiritual guides and catechists, able to take them
by the hand and to lead them up Mount Tabor, guiding them in the
knowledge of the mystery they profess. … Do not spare any efforts
in accompanying them and do not let them resign themselves to staying
on the plain”.

Bishops as mystagogues

“I think of baptised people who do
not however respond to the demands of their Baptism. Perhaps it has
long been thought that the land on which the seed of the Gospel falls
is not in need of care. Some have drifted away as they are
disillusioned by the promises of faith or perhaps because the path to
realising them has appeared too challenging. Some instead leave,
slamming the door behind them, holding our weaknesses against us or
seeking, while not entirely successfully, to convince themselves that
they had been deceived by hopes that were ultimately dashed. Be
bishops able to intercept their path. … Do not be scandalised by
their pain or their disappointments. Enlighten them with a humble
flame … always able to illuminate those who are reached by its
light that is, however, never blinding. Devote time to meeting them
on the road to their Emmaus. Offer them words that show to them what
they are still unable to see: the hidden potential of their very
delusions. … More than with words, warm their hearts by humbly
listening, interested in what is truly good for them, so that they
open their eyes and are able to reverse course, returning to Him,
from Whom they had drifted.

Bishops as missionaries

“As pastors and missionaries of God's
gratuitous salvation, seek also those who do not know Jesus or have
simply refused Him. Go in their direction … without fear or unease.
… It is not true that we can do without these distant brothers. It
is not permissible for us to dispense with our concerns about their
fate. … Seeing in us the Lord Who calls to them, perhaps they will
have the courage to respond to the divine invitation. If so, our
communities will be enriched by what they have to share and our
Pastors' hearts will rejoice to repeat once more, “Today salvation
has come to this house”.

Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) –
This morning in the Paul VI Hall the Pope received in audience the
participants in the International Meeting of the Equipes Notre Dame
(Teams of Our Lady, END), held in Rome on the theme, “Here I am
Lord, send me”. The Equipes are a lay movement focusing on married
spirituality, established in response to the needs of couples to live
fully the sacrament of marriage, using its own method and exploring
the complex reality of married couples today. The END were founded in
France in 1938 upon the initiative of a number of couples and the
priest Fr. Henri Caffarel, whose cause for beatification has been
received in Rome.

Recalling the upcoming Synod on the
family, Francis invited the members of the END to pray for the Synod
Fathers and for what they must reflect upon in the assembly on the
“vital cell of our societies … in the difficult current cultural
context”, and devoted his discourse primarily to the missionary
role of the Equipes Notre Dame.

“Christian couples and families are
often in the best position to announce Jesus Christ to other
families, to support them, to strengthen and encourage them. What you
live in the couple and the family – accompanied by the charism
typical of your movement – this profound and unique joy that the
Lord enables you to experience in the intimacy of domestic life,
between joy and suffering, you must bear witness to … so that
others, in turn, take the same path”.

The Pope encouraged all the couples to
live deeply the “concrete aspects of commitment” of the movement,
such as prayer in couples and in the family, a “beautiful and
necessary tradition that has always supported the faith and hope of
Christians, and unfortunately abandoned in many regions of the
world”. He also emphasised the importance of monthly dialogue
between spouses, “that well-known and challenging 'need to sit
down' that is counter to the habits of our frenetic and agitated
world riven with individualism”. Finally, participation in the life
of a team brings “the wealth of teaching and sharing, as well as
the help and comfort of friendship”. In this respect Francis
underlined the mutual fruitfulness of meeting with the accompanying
priests, and thanked the couples of the END for the support and
encouragement in the ministry of their priests “who always find, in
contact with your Equipes and your families, priestly joy, fraternal
presence, emotional balance and spiritual paternity”.

The missionary task of the movement is
of supreme importance and the Holy Father indicated various fields of
action, such as accompanying young couples and forming them in faith
before and after marriage, or closeness to wounded families, “of
whom there are so many these days, due to unemployment, … health
problems, bereavement … the imbalance caused by distance or
absence, or a climate of violence. We must have the courage to enter
into contact with these families, in a discreet but generous way,
materially, humanly and spiritually, in those circumstances in which
they are vulnerable”.

Finally, the Pope encouraged couples to
“be instruments of the mercy of Christ and the Church towards those
whose marriage has failed. Never forget that your conjugal fidelity
is a gift from God, and that mercy has been shown to every one of us.
A united and happy couple can understand better than any other, from
within, the harm and the suffering caused by abandonment, betrayal,
and a lack of love. It is necessary, therefore, that you bring your
witness and your experience to help Christian communities to discern
the real situations in which these people find themselves, to welcome
them with their wounds, and to help them to journey in faith and in
truth, under the gaze of Christ the Good Shepherd, to take part in
the life of the Church in an appropriate way. Nor must you forget the
unspeakable suffering of the children who experience these painful
family situations.

Vatican City, 10 September 2015 (VIS) –
Accepting the invitation issued by the respective Heads of State and
the bishops, Pope Francis will make an apostolic trip to Kenya from
25 to 27 November 2015, Uganda from 27 to 29 November, and the
Central African Republic from 29 to 30 November. The programme of the
trip will be published in due course.